Experimental study of a novel hybrid solar-thermal/PV-Hydrogen system: towards 100% renewable heat and power supply to standalone applications

An experimental set-up of a solar hot water system integrated with the fuel cell heat pertaining to a solar-hydrogen system is built at the RMIT University in Victoria, Australia. The system could validate an earlier theoretical model, to supply power and hot water demand to a remote household in southeast Australia, with the solar-hydrogen sized to meet 100% of the power demand. Experimental results showed the ability of this system to meet the hot water demand of the household by up to: 91% on a 24-h representative day in winter, 97% on a representative day in spring, and 100% on a representative day in summer. The heat recovered from the fuel cell belonging to the solar-hydrogen combined heat and power system and the heat gained by the collector, were found experimentally to be complementary in nature, and the fuel cell heat was highly utilised (i.e. above 97% in winter and spring and 69% in summer). By approaching towards 100% heat and power supply to standalone applications using only solar energy, this system can be effectively used in remote households and standalone disconnected applications with power and hot water demands.